When it comes to security we can’t dodge the bullet

Questions remain as to how an independent Scotland will handle the big defence and immigration questions.

Defence

Defence of the realm is surely the most important function of any country’s government. So the SNP plans for a 15,000-strong Scottish Defence Force and a single intelligence agency to replace the UK’s spooks as set out in the Scotland’s Future blueprint had better add up.

Defence cuts in recent years have hit Scotland. Towns like Leuchars and Rosyth have suffered as the bases they serve shrank. The decision to do without the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft has arguably its biggest effect in Scotland with its long and exposed coastline. And, undoubtedly, there is little enthusiasm among Scots for Trident being based on the Clyde, apart from those whose jobs rely on it and that’s a not insignificant number.

The SNP plans amount to around 2000 regular armed personnel and 200 reserves on the mooted independence day in March 2016. Within 10 years that would be built up to 15,000 regular troops and 5000 reserves. Around a dozen ships would be claimed from the current Royal Navy, including two frigates. The Air Force would include a minimum of 12 Typhoon jets as well as a helicopter squadron and six Hercules transport planes.

After independence it would be up to the first elected government of a separate Scotland to carry out a strategic defence review and build on those numbers as they see fit.

However, the SNP has seen fit to put a figure on the defence budget £2.5 billion. It’s a figure that’s raised eyebrows among defence experts who believe either it would have to be revised upwards for the first few years at least or a Scottish government would have to accept that it could not protect itself alone immediately after independence but if it got into Nato, the UN and the EU as hoped, the latter need not be a problem.

The question of defence jobs is seemingly insurmountable for the SNP. The defence budget in an independent Scotland would be smaller and just as the government in Edinburgh would be hammered if it sent a contract to England rather than pick a homegrown firm for the contracts it’s promised to award in the first few years after independence it’s hard to see Westminster effectively giving up on votes in shipbuilding towns like Barrow or Portsmouth to have ships built on the Clyde.

The Scottish Government’s White Paper sets out plans for a single intelligence agency combining the duties of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ tasked with intelligence gathering, risk and threat assessment and ensuring cyber security.

The shape and cost of Scotland’s security services depends on the risks the nation would face. Inevitably there’s some dispute about this.

The Scottish Government cites terrorism, cyber-security and defending critical infrastructure such as the oil rigs. The UK government, in their Scotland Analysis paper on security added in organised crime, natural hazards and border security to the mix.

The independent Royal United Services Institute in a paper on the issue came down somewhere in the middle concentrating on cyber-security, terrorism and energy security and expressing some puzzlement that the SNP didn’t mention organised crime in the White Paper despite research showing drugs cost the economy over £2 billion every year and the vast majority of gangs and crime syndicates are involved in drugs.

The White Paper puts the security service bill at around £206 million based on Scotland’s population share. The RUSI authors describe that as an “entirely meaningless figure”.

What all can agree on is that the cost of setting up security services training spies, establishing a Scottish GCHQ would be significant.

The SNP have chopped and changed their plans before arriving at the blueprint in the White Paper. How can they set the size of the budget and indeed the terms of employment for soldiers (they say there’d be no compulsory redundancy) but leave it to the first independent administration to decide how to spend it?

Defence is too important to dodge the big questions.

Immigration

It is an issue which nearly 60% of voters are concerned about and should be looming large as Scots make up their minds on the referendum. But, curiously, all sides of the independence battle have tiptoed around the topic of immigration, perhaps spooked by how corrosive the debate has become south of the Border.

Polling by the Migration Observatory showed that while Scots aren’t as anti-immigration as folk elsewhere in the UK they still want the numbers down. Yet the SNP plans to substantially increase immigration in a bid to drive the economy of an independent Scotland. However, questions remain on the consequences of lifting restrictions on non-EU immigration in a country accustomed to trickles rather than floods of migrants.

We are told there will be tax revenue gains, but not by how much, and there is no mention in the White Paper of the potential consequences for already hard-pressed public services such as schools and hospitals.

Such financial gains and losses are important because of the demographic timebomb facing the country, regardless of the result on September 18.

Research by the House of Commons library found Scotland would need an extra 24,000 people every year to compensate for the growing gap between the number of pensioners and the number of workers required to earn the tax to pay their pensions.

The White Paper asserts that Scotland will remain in the Common Travel Area that currently covers the UK, Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and allows passport-free travel throughout. But that’s incompatible with the Schengen Agreement the EU rules that new member states must sign up to allowing free movement of people.

To get its way Scotland would have to not just join the EU but also negotiate an opt-out from Schengen, as the UK currently has. But if, and there are a lot of ifs, that happens and it joins the CTA the fact is Scotland, like Ireland, would not be able to have an immigration policy vastly different to the rest of the UK. And while that’s not what is promised in the White Paper it’s probably what most Scottish people want.

Verdict

The UK hasn’t faced a threat to its existence since the Nazis were at the door more than 70 years ago. Not many people remember that, so defence can seem an intangible concept. But there are still threats out there.

The independence debate has been played out to a backdrop of terrible and terrifying events in Ukraine, Gaza and perhaps most obviously in Iraq where the Islamic State has grown and Scots have been caught up as victims and perpetrators.

It is the politicians’ job to keep us safe. Arguing over whether we’ll be out of pocket after a Yes vote is important. Making sure people in Scotland can sleep soundly, safe from the threat of terrorists or foreign invaders is far more vital.

That doesn’t just mean having tanks, ships and fighter jets. It means having an effective intelligence service to identify threats and undo them. And it means maintaining international alliances, for as a small country Scotland would rely on friends in high places to help out if the worst came to the worst.

The SNP have laid out their plans for a Scottish Defence Force and for Scottish security services. A slew of experts have lined up to question and criticise those ideas. The views of men who have commanded the entire British army or Navy cannot be discounted.

There is a suspicion that defence is not the nationalists’ strong point. And some believe that the SNP are relying on being able to shelter under the UK’s defence umbrella. That’s a risk though and it relies on good relations between the neighbours.

And ties could be quickly soured if the SNP insist Trident leaves the Clyde before Westminster is ready to rehouse it. Allies further afield may also be put out if Nato’s nuclear arrangements are disturbed.

Trident could prove a trump card for Scotland in independence negotiations, but play the hand badly and the new nation could be born under a bad sign.

A country cannot gamble on its defence.